Few of California’s laws are the norm :lol:. I actually work in the juvenile criminal justice system and see this sort of thing on a regular basis.
We have had quite a few parents taken to jail over their minor child’s truancy issues. Additionally, the parents are responsible for the minor’s fines/fees and restitution as I stated before. The cost for our juvenile hall is (I believe) $15.00 per day. This doesn’t begin to cover the actual costs, but it helps. Additionally, the parent is responsible for the public defender fees, as well as any additional Court costs.
When a restitution fine is joint and several, both the minors and their parents are responsible for the cost.
In fact years ago, one of the minors I was working with keyed my car. I didn’t see any money, until that minor turned 18. He recieved a large sum of money from a car accident settlement. Since the Court had gone after the minor civilly they attached his settlement, and all of his restitiution fines were paid first, then he received what was left over. In that situation, the minor’s parent had no money, however, the Court did attach his father’s tax refund in order to recoup the cost of the Court costs and juvenile hall stays.
As a general rule, the Court will go after the parent for fines/fees and Court costs, and then file civilly on the minor when they turn 18 years of age. Additionally, minors can be kept on juvenile probation until they are 21 years old in the state of California. If those fees/fines/restitution aren’t paid, the probation departments can request the Court not release the minor’s probation.
There are a lot of wacky laws concerning children and crimes in California. There is a case down south where a mother is being prosecuted for driving her teen son and his friends to the park so they could murder a 14 year old boy. Now in this case the mother participated by driving the minor’s to the crime sceen.
Unfortunately, there are many bad parents out there. Crime is generational. We have a family where I live, that I called the jail to get time credits, and they had time credits for the great-grandpa, the grandpa, the father and the youngest (all of whom shared a name). The family had been in and out of jail since 1903.
I do have to add however, there are parents, who do their best, do a good job, and their children are JUST BAD/DAMAGED whatever you want to call it. I will conceed children who demonstrate this behavior are often a product of their environment, but not always.
Kids with problems like these girls have also often seek each other out. There are two very different classes of juveniles in the world. While these girls are very definately the minority, I’ll tell you in the 8 years I’ve been working where I work and the two years prior to that I worked in criminal defense, the crimes that are being committed by our young people (especially the girls) are escalating in viciousness and callousness. We ain’t in Kansas anymore people.
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